by Lora Leigh
“Alyssa?” John Raeg—pronounced “rage,” as he was always quick to correct anyone who pronounced it otherwise—her father’s chief of staff, moved across the stone terrace quickly, a heavy scowl on his craggy features, his cell phone to his ear. “Are you okay?”
She nodded, feeling Sebastian’s hand as it continued to rub her back as a shudder raced up her spine. “I’m fine, Raeg.”
Turning, he was speaking into the phone as he moved back toward the house, the sound of sirens rushing steadily closer.
“What the hell was that, ’Bastian?” she demanded as Shane eased away from them, moving slowly toward the edge of the courtyard.
“We’ll know what it was soon,” he promised.
“Someone put an explosive in my office. Are they fucking crazed?” An amazed laugh escaped her. She couldn’t believe it. Someone had put an explosive in her office, for what? Because Sebastian and Shane intended to share her bed?
“We don’t know that yet, sweets,” he assured her, his voice low. “Let’s wait and see what we find before we jump to conclusions.”
Shane had completely disappeared now. Looking around, she didn’t catch sight of him, but paramedics were rushing into the courtyard, along with Detective Allen. The suspicion on his face wasn’t subtle. It locked on her, his gaze narrowing as he moved directly toward her.
“Ms. Stanhope,” he greeted, pushing the lightweight jacket he wore back as he propped his fists at his hips. “Sure you don’t know who’s trying to hurt you?” he asked, a reminder of the same question he’d asked when he’d interviewed her after the attempted hit-and-run.
“Only one person would have wanted to hurt me, Carl,” she sighed as his gaze sharpened on her. “And he’s dead. Last I heard, ghosts have a hard time with some of the things going on around me.”
“Ghosts might.” He nodded slowly. “But some people get fixated on stuff. Maybe someone they were close to? Someone that loved them?”
“Then your guess is as good as mine.” She laughed bitterly. “If you find anyone willing to admit to loving that bastard, even his parents, then please let me know. I’ll say a prayer for them.”
Shooting the detective a look, Sebastian gave a little shake of his head. He’d talk to Carl himself. He wanted Alyssa out of sight and safe. Now.
“Here’s Landra and her bodyguards, Alyssa. I want you to go upstairs with them while I find Shane and see what’s going on. Can you walk?” Sebastian’s hand ran comfortingly up her back.
“I can walk.” Pushing at his hands, she rose from his lap, though he could have sworn she swayed just a bit as she stood.
“Mr. De Loren.” The lead security personnel nodded as Landra stopped in front of Alyssa, her voice low as she talked to the younger girl. “Mr. Collier said to follow your directions until we heard from him. What do you need?”
Sebastian nodded to where Landra actually managed to draw a low, shaky laugh from Alyssa. “Get them to one of the more secure suites upstairs until we have this taken care of. I don’t want anyone but myself, Shane, the senator, or your boss in those rooms,” he ordered them, his voice tight.
“Yes, sir,” the agent responded soberly. “We’ll make sure they stay safe.”
Sebastian met Landra’s gaze, then and nodded to the bodyguards, indicating she should take Alyssa and go with them.
“Come on, dear, let’s get out of here so the boys can take care of this,” Landra urged her, one arm wrapped around Alyssa’s waist. “They’ll work so much better without us breathing down their necks.”
Whatever Alyssa said, Landra gave a little laugh, filled with amusement. “Yeah, well, we like to let them believe they do, sweetie. It makes them happy; then we’re happy.”
Evidently Alyssa thought little of not being able to breathe down their necks.
“Sebastian.” The detective stared around the courtyard, watching, taking everything in. “We have a problem here?”
A member of the Sinclair Men’s Club and a personal friend of Ian’s, the detective knew his main concern was protecting the club and its members.
“We have a problem here,” Sebastian affirmed. “But it’s not a club problem.”
Carl snorted. “Doesn’t mean much, according to Ian,” he murmured. “We talking here or at your office?”
“Here. After they’ve all left.” Sebastian nodded to the staff milling around. “The senator and Jeb will want to be there, so let’s just do this once.”
“I hear ya,” Carl agreed. “I’ll check things out inside then. We’ll talk before I leave.”
Sebastian nodded, catching sight of Shane as he eased from the doors leading into the back office and moved easily to where Sebastian stood.
“Anything?” Sebastian asked him.
“Low-grade explosive. I’ll have to wait on analysis before I know the intent behind it. My opinion, though, if it wasn’t meant to kill her, then it was meant to put her in a wheelchair. The text triggered it, but she didn’t wait when she got the damned thing. She was at the door when it went off or she would have been wearing the chair leg like a stake.”
“God, Shane,” he bit out, the image far more graphic than he wanted to deal with.
Crossing his arms over his chest, Shane stared around the area again. “I’ll contact Falcone, tell him to put a rush on it. We need him here as soon as possible.”
Falcone and his partner, Gia Bennet, were currently wrapping up a lead on a suspected tie between Harvey Stanhope and Gregory Santiago. The private security investigator and his partner made up one of the teams Shane was considering for the international security firm he and Sebastian were putting together.
“Whoever it is, isn’t wasting time. They have access to the house and the club, and they mean to destroy her, one way or the other. Send the names of the staff here to Khalid; let him run them against membership, see what we come up with.”
By the sound of his voice, like Sebastian he wasn’t expecting any matches.
“Someone’s very, very stupid,” Shane said, his lips barely moving, ensuring no one could follow the conversation. “If they knew what they were doing, they wouldn’t have come after ’Lyssa like this.”
If they knew what they were doing, then they would have checked out those surrounding Alyssa. They would have checked his and Shane’s backgrounds and at least suspected there was more to them than meets the eye. Because damned sure, they weren’t aware that Alyssa’s lovers were far more deadly than they appeared. And the two showing up in the next twenty-four hours were guaranteed to fuck someone’s shit up. And they wouldn’t even know it until it was far, far too late.
21
Sebastian was waiting for her alone as she entered her room after showering. Thankfully, her living suite hadn’t been affected, even by the smoke. The renovations made to it two years before had given her complete separation from the office and secured the other rooms from intrusion.
Probably to talk to those contacts he had at the CIA.
The CIA. She was still astounded. Why hadn’t she suspected in Barcelona?
“What do you need, Sebastian?” she asked, her insides still shaking from the earlier attempt to decimate her body parts by whoever planted that explosive.
“To check on you, love,” he answered from where he sat on the padded bench at the end of her bed. “You’ve not exactly had a chance to catch your breath lately, have you?”
“Oh, it’s just been fun and games,” she assured him. “Fun and games.”
Yeah, right. How long had it been since she’d had the freedom for any kind of fun, let alone games? Oh yeah, right. Eight years. And they’d all paid for that one hadn’t they?
“When do you get to have fun and games then, sweets?” he asked softly then.
Eight years ago, she repeated silently. Eight long, pain-filled years ago.
“When I have time.” She watched as he began to unbutton his shirt, her insides melting at the thought of the pleasure to come.
The snow-wh
ite dress shirt made his dark Spanish flesh seem all the more appealing. His dark eyes watched her with wicked lust and a deepening emotion that made her chest ache.
“And do you have time very often?” He approached her slowly, the lean, powerful muscles of his chest coming into view as the last button slipped free.
Pulling the material from his shoulders, he dropped it negligently to the back of a nearby chair.
Alyssa’s insides were shaking. No matter how hard she tried, she couldn’t seem to draw enough air into her lungs now. Her lips parted; her knees grew weak. She tried to tell herself the reaction was a result of too many long, sleepless nights. That excuse was laughable.
She knew better. It wasn’t the weariness; it was Sebastian, Shane, both. Whichever touched her, however they touched her. Whether they were together or apart, their effect on her was the same.
“You didn’t answer me.” Stopping in front of her, he lifted one hand, his fingers curving around the back of her neck. “Do you have time for fun and games very often?”
“I make time.” She was such a liar. Evidently she’d learned more in observing the political bullshit on a daily basis than she’d meant to. The small spurt of amusement she felt at the thought almost had the corners of her lips tugging into a smile.
Who could suspect that the sweetly honest young woman he’d known in Spain could actually force such lies past her pretty lips? Not that she could do so without giving herself away, but he was surprised she kept trying.
“And you’re making time for me now,” he said, hiding the knowing amusement that filled him. “I feel very honored that you’ve fit me into your busy schedule.”
“You should, all things considered.” Her breathing was so hard, her heart racing so fast, that Sebastian wondered if they would both expire from lack of oxygen before the night was over.
Her gray eyes darkened as he rubbed at the back of her neck with the tips of his fingers, his head lowering to brush a whisper of a kiss at her shoulder.
Poor little sweet. Their return to her life hadn’t exactly been peaceful, had it?
“And I assure you, love, I do consider all things,” he said, the feel of her fingers moving timidly against his chest making it difficult to ensure he paid attention to each nuance of the woman he and Shane had despaired of ever touching again.
Now, watching her gray eyes darken to thunderclouds, Sebastian knew his control was just as weak around her at this moment as it was at any other time.
Already sensation was raking across his body just as he felt her shudder against him and knew the sharpness of her response after so long apart had caught her off guard. She couldn’t hide her pleasure any more than she could hide her hunger for his touch, for the ecstasy she’d found in his and Shane’s arms so long ago.
Hiding his smile, Sebastian let his fingers trail down her arm, experiencing the incredible warmth and silkiness of her skin.
Lifting his hand to the thin straps holding the bodice of her nightgown over the creamy curves of her breasts, he let his fingers play over the fragile material.
“I love the feel of you.” Lowering his head, he let his lips play at the curve of her neck and shoulder. “The taste of skin as it heats with pleasure has filled my fantasies for many long, cold nights.”
Her hands slid to his biceps, her fingers tightening over the bunched muscles as those destructive kisses moved lower.
“What about Shane?” A hint of nerves had her voice trembling. It had been so long for her, he knew. So very long since she’d had the touch she ached for. The touch her body had been branded with. The few nights they’d had weren’t enough for any of them.
Sebastian chuckled at the question. “That isn’t how this works, sweets. You know that. We don’t need each other’s permission to have you alone. Just as we each can’t deny the other the pleasure of touching you, or having you at any time. You reserve that control alone.”
It had been rarely, though, that they had taken her alone in the past.
“A seduction isn’t required,” she breathed out with a hint of desperation in her tone. Had she truly forgotten or so feared the pleasure they’d once shared? The bond it seemed to strengthen between them?
“Pleasure is required, sweet ’Lyssa.” A little nip to her ear followed by a gentle kiss had her nails pricking at his upper arms.
Sebastian tightened his grip at the nape of her neck, lifted his head, then paused, waited for her gaze to find his. As he watched the helpless longing burning in her eyes, his head lowered and his lips settled over hers.
He’d meant to kiss her slow and easy, to build the fire burning between them. The second his lips touched hers all thoughts of slow and easy evaporated.
They could have lost her today. If the trigger on that explosive had been set right, if she had been a heartbeat slower, they would have lost her.
Smooth, experienced seduction became a ravenous hunger tearing aside his control.
Never had his sexual hungers taken control of him in such a way, though he remembered it had been close several times in the past when it came to this woman.
She met the hunger tearing through him with her own. Lips parting beneath the onslaught, desperate hands lifting to his neck before burrowing into his hair to hold him to her. She consumed his kiss, lips and tongue moving against his, her feminine mewls of rising need burning through any thought he might have harbored of drawing back, of easing the needs he was unleashing on her.
She was all that warmed his heart. Over the years only thoughts of Alyssa had kept him sane. Had kept him from drowning in the dark abyss he sometimes felt himself sinking into.
Sweet Alyssa. He would never sate this hunger for her, this need for her alone that captivated him.
As he devoured the sweetness of her kiss, Sebastian fought to remove the gown without tearing the delicate fabric. To carefully push the slender straps over her arms to allow it to fall, forgotten, to the floor at her feet.
And Alyssa, never one to simply take her due, had followed suit. Those nimble, graceful fingers released his slacks, allowing her to push the material over his hips and reveal the agonizing engorged erection the material had kept restrained.
Kicking off his shoes, Sebastian finished divesting himself of the pants as he tore his lips from the addictive sweetness of her kiss.
As much as he loved her hungry kisses, there were other places on her very lovely body that he longed to taste. He was addicted to her taste, her touch, to touching her.
“’Bastian, oh God, ’Bastian, I need you.” It wasn’t a whimper of sensual need. It was a demand. A feminine warning that her own hungers threatened to override any shyness or sexual uncertainties she might harbor.
Her touch wasn’t one of experienced desires, rather that of a woman tormented by her need as well as the desperate longing to touch her lover.
Sebastian let his lips move along her neck, her collarbone, then to the rapid rise and fall of her breasts. Sweet, cherry red nipples hardened by passion and tempting him to taste, to take his fill of the swollen sweetness drew him with an irresistable force.
Greedy hunger rushed through his senses. He’d been too long denied her, ached for her for too many years.
Without preliminaries his head dipped, his lips covered a pebble-hard tip, and he gloried in her sharp cry of pleasure. The need to experience every facet of this longed-for treat drew a matching groan from his chest.
God help him. Never had a woman shredded his experienced control as this one delicate, far too tempting woman could.
She was his weakness, his most coveted dream, and a hunger he’d never been able to rid himself of. She was the only thing he couldn’t deny himself.
*
Sensation exploded through Alyssa’s body as Sebastian’s lips covered her nipple and drew the painfully sensitive flesh into the heat of his mouth.
Flash points of burning exquisite pleasure ricocheted from the tiny bundle of nerves to the flexing, empty depths of
her vagina. Slick heat spilled between her thighs and the bare folds sheltering her sex became swollen and oversensitive while the engorged bud of her clit throbbed in heady demand.
The heavy draw of his mouth and flicking licks of his tongue against the tight point of her nipple sent fiery flashes of sensation to contract around her clit and pleasure burning through her with such consummate need it was like the most incredible high. Her favorite drug.
Burying her fingers in his hair and fighting to keep her knees from giving out, Alyssa forced her eyes to open. Savagely honed features were softened by lust and filled with decadent, wicked need. He looked like a fallen angel. Fierce and far too strong, his touch mesmerizing and impossible for her to deny.
When his hunger shifted to the opposite nipple, Alyssa whimpered.
Sebastian’s fingers brushed against the slick, saturated folds between her thighs. Sharp pleasure lanced through her, sending a hard, convulsive spasm shuddering through her body.
Her knees gave out at the same second Sebastian’s lips abandoned her breast and he lifted her to him, before turning and settling her rear on the chest of drawers just behind her.
“There’s a bed,” she gasped as he pushed her thighs farther apart and lifted his head to stare back at her, his eyes as black as sin and gleaming with hunger.
“This is closer.” The rough cadence of his voice sent chills of pleasure racing up her spine as she swallowed against the emotions tightening her throat.
“Lay back, pretty siren,” he crooned, sliding the fragile lace of her panties from her body. Tossing the scrap of material aside, his gaze centered between her thighs. “Let’s see how crazy I can make us both.”
He followed the statement with his tongue pushing into the narrow slit and disintegrated Alyssa’s senses.
A low, pleading whimper escaped her lips as he slid his tongue to the throbbing flesh of her clit. Then he licked lower once again to find the snug entrance of her core and flicked against it teasingly before delivering a heated kiss to the sensitive lips flaring open at his touch.